Manchester City are closing in on a deal for Borussia Dortmund defender Manuel Akanji as Pep Guardiola looks to further bolster his back line.
According to the Athletic, discussions between the two clubs are ongoing, with a potential deal expected to be worth in the region of £15million. City already have four centre-backs at the club - John Stones, Ruben Dias, Nathan Ake and Aymeric Laporte. But the latter two are injured and in fact, Laporte has yet to feature at all this season.
It’s therefore likely that Akanji could be seen as an ideal option to add more depth to that area of the pitch for Guardiola’s men. Akanji joined Borussia Dortmund in 2019 from Basel and has been a key player for the German outfit. He finished the last campaign having made 36 appearances across all competitions.
He’s struggled for game time this season though with the club investing in their defence over the summer by signing Niklas Sule from Bayern Munich and Nico Schlotterbeck from Freiburg. Akanji has entered the final year of his current contract, which is why City could potentially secure his signature for a reasonable fee, and it’s easy to see why Guardiola fancies the 27-year-old.
As a result of Dortmund’s possession-focused philosophy, Akanji tends to be a heavy contributor to his team’s build-up play. Only five Bundesliga centre-backs who played 1000+ minutes averaged more passes per 90 last season (71.09). Despite this, he still had the second-best pass success rate across the division (92.32 per cent).
Naturally, a lot of those passes were short and safe, yet he does have a capacity to play more progressive balls when opportunities present themselves; he ranked in the top ten of that aforementioned group for progressive passes made per 90.
His comfort in possession will be one of his more valued traits from a City perspective. However, strong defensive capabilities will still be considered important too. In terms of defensive duels, the 27-year-old showed up really well last season. Again from that group of Bundesliga defenders, he ranked second for having the highest average defensive duel success rate (75.74 per cent).
A slight concern though is his ability in the air. Although he stands at 6ft2in, which should give him a height advantage over a lot of attackers he faces, his numbers in terms of aerial duels won are way below what you’d expect. His success rate ranked 60th among the 71 Bundesliga defenders (49.45 per cent).
There is more to defensive skill than what is shown in raw duel success rates, and Akanji’s other good physical traits such as his speed do go someway to compensating for his deficiency in this area.
If ranked against City’s other central defenders, it’s arguably fair to say Akanji operates at a level below and he's unlikely to challenge the quartet of central defenders already at the club when they're fully fit. Yet he has a profile that could see him adjust fairly comfortably within the possession-focused system that Guardiola looks to implement, this will be a key reason why he’ll be seen as an ideal backup should he arrive.
